Beauty Blog

Tag: urban decay

After several Comfort Mattes, this is my first Mega Matte of the Urban Decay Vice lipstick range. The color is simply called Alpha. It’s a bright pink.

Swatch. This color is so beautiful and intense: I think it will suit just about everybody. Strong pinks always make me so happy. XD

Color comparison! I have a whole lot of fuchsias and in general more blue leaning pinks than yellow leaning pinks. Alpha leans yellow and is darker than most of my lipsticks. The four lowest lipsticks have a matte finish, the two underneath Alpha have a cream finish (Givenchy and Estee Lauder). Alpha is supposed to be “mega matte” but honestly I found it to be satin/matte. It’s certainly not as flat as mattes from MAC.

Sadly the not as matte as expected finish also affects longevity. The lipsticks survives mayyybe four hours without eating. I did not see much of a difference between UDs comfort matte and mega matte finish in look and wear time. The mega matte lasts a smidgen better and is more drying compared to comfort matte. It is less drying than a regular MAC lipstick.

So this beauty here is the Vice Lipstick in Mrs. Mia Wallace (cream) by Urban Decay. So far all the Vice Lipsticks I had were in the comfort matte finish. Finally I have a cream one. Mrs. Mia Wallace seems to be a popular color. Despite being not a limited edition it is frequently out of stock.

Swatch. Is there anything a good as red lipstick??? This is a darker medium neutral red with slightly blue undertone and creamy finish.

The color was of course named after the character in Pulp Fiction although the color the character wears looks browner to me. Might be the film’s lighting (of course this lipstick didn’t exist back then either so I don’t know what she was wearing. We do know the nail polish was an earlier version of Chanel’s Rouge Noir.) Anyway so honestly this color reminds me more of Cheryl Blossom in the TV Show Riverdale. I love watching that show for Cheryl’s makeup alone, her ridiculously overdrawn red lips that she wears like armour. You know something’s off when you see her in a nude color instead of her trademark red.

Back to makeup, here’s the color comparison:

When I shot this pic I was like oh these colors are all so DIFFERENT. And when I opened the pic on the computer I was like, damn I have WAYYYY to much red lipstick. XD

First swipe is Mrs Mia Wallace, underneath is Viva Glam I, which is darker and matte. Next one is Maybelline Rich Ruby, wich is also matte but otherwise closest in color to Mia. Last is Estee Lauder Vengeful Red, which has a cream finish, but the color is lighter and pinker.

The cream finish glides on the lips easily. If you’re not careful it might end up all over the place (I’m just so used to applying very matte colors!). I recommend using a lip brush for the prettiest results.

Lasting time: well, it is not a matte lipstick so the wear time doesn’t compare to the comfort mattes. Most of my MAC lipsticks regardless of finish last a lot longer than Mia. Eating and drinking killed it off completely, drinking alone reduces it a lot as well. It lasted better applied with a brush than straight from the bullet; I think it was worked in better that way. But overall it lasted three hours, not much longer. I tried using a lip liner (the closest color I own is He Said, She Said) but the lipstick wore off the same and left me with the lip liner alone.

On the upside this lipstick is hydrating and feels lovely. I love the color but I wish it lasted better.

So, Urban Decay has these lovely powder highlighters. They’re called Afterglow 8-hour powder highlighters. I was looking for a pink one, because somehow I have half a dozen gold highlighters, but no pink.

Enter Aura, which is a very light pink base color with pink shimmer.

Swatch. Some highlighters are so hard to photograph, but in real life this is an amazing glow, perfect for strobing. My skin has yellow undertone, so pink based highlighter pops more than gold. This color works very well for the pale kids as it just merges with your skin. It applies mostly as shimmer and a little bit of the base color, meaning it should work for most skin tones, but on dark skin the light base color could maybe be visible as a chalky stripe.

Aura is very easy to apply it basically blends itself and it truly does wear for eight hours. This is smack-down the best powder highlighter I own. Now I sort of want the others too, not that I need them. *sigh*

The Afterglow Highlighters are available in the regular lineup, not limited. Yay.

It’s that time of the year again! I didn’t feel much like doing a best of beauty products last year, but this year I have enough product loves to make a list:

best lipstick: 2016 was my purple pink year. I bought probably too many similar shades, but my absolute fav this year was MAC‘s Ariana Grande 2.

best new perfume release: There are so many releases each year I usually only discover them later on. But of the new ones I smelled this year, ChanelN°5 L’Eau was the best. Even if I can’t smell the drydown, it so good while it lasts.

best bottle: MoschinoEau Fresh. The smell is boring but the bottle is hilarious.

best mascara: essenceforbidden volume top coat. The plain mascara of this line is good, too, but the top coat rocks everything.

best cheek product: I’m still on the fence with the blush part of the Zoevarose golden palette, but everytime I put it in storage I missed the highlighter so much I had to get it out again.

The new, huge Vice lipstick line by Urban Decay also included a black in their comfort matte formula. I figured it was worth a try. And because I am a fan of matching lip liners I also bought the 24/7 Glide-on Lip Pencil. Both of these are in the regular lineup, not limited.

Here’s the Vice Lipstick in all its glory. The color is called Perversion. Since Urban Decay color names stay the same across products, their true black eyeliners etc are also named Perversion.

The liner looks like this.

Swatch of the liner alone.

Swatch of lipstick plus liner. The lipstick is really good, gives off a lot of color pigment. With one swipe across my lips it was almost opaque, with two it looked perfect. The matte comfort finish is more of a satin matte, it is not as matte or drying as a regular matte by MAC, but it is also not quite as long lasting as a MAC matte. Last time I reveiwed the comfort matte I said I wanted to try a different finish, and here I am with yet another comfort matte. Sigh. It’s just I think this finish has the best colors in it, haha. Anyway, the lipstick has a great quality, you know, for a black lipstick. It wears off mostly evenly, but of course it looks sorta grungy when it wears off, as your natural color peeks through. I found the lipstick extremely easy to apply and it was also easy to get the lines crisp with just the bullet. Also, like I already mentioned it got opaque with two swipes.

So, this brings us to the bad part of the review: the liner. I got it to help getting the lines crisp, to help with opacity – which the lipstick absolutely didn’t need, but I didn’t know that! My recommendation is really to just buy the lipstick alone. Because, and you can see it in the swatches quite well, the liner does not create a crisp line. The liner, and that’s really the last thing you need a lip liner to do, freaking bleeds! Evey time I tried to do my mouth with it I looked like a failed attempt at a horror clown! I mean the whole reason I did not use an eye liner was that I expected the eyeliner to smudge, which I thought a waxy lip liner would not do. But it does. Boo!

So, long story short: lipstick yay, liner nay. If you really want to use a pencil with it, you’re better off with MAC’s Chromagraphic in Black Black.

Lip swatch. The edges in the middle of my mouth (cupid’s bow) are made with the lipstick bullet. The corners were done with liner and you can see the smudging. That was not a corner thing, it had happened everywhere but I wiped it off and applied anew in the middle for the sake of the photograph. “Prevents feathering” my ass. I don’t know if this problem only arises with the Perversion color or others, too, as this is my only UD lip liner.

Other than that I found this color to be surprisingly wearable! Real black isn’t all that far off those dark purples anyway. I think more people should wear it, it goes with all skin tones, too.

I bought this eyeshadow duo in spring and wore it a lot back then and then sort of neglected to give it a review. 😦 So here it is: Fashion Rebel by NARS.

These are my first eyeshadows by Nars and I decided to go all out. It’s a yellow and a purple eyeshadow, both are finely milled and without shimmer.

These are the swatches. I think color payoff is pretty good. Actually, the swatch doesn’t live up to it? On my eyes I pat the colors on, no swiping and am pretty happy with the result.

Have another swatch, this time on bare skin top and bottom and in the middle with a white base. The base makes a difference with the purple, but the intensity of the yellow is almost the same.

Wear time: these totally need a primer! But with a primer, they last quite well. I’d say five hours are solid, then the color does start to vanish. It always stays on close to the lashline though.

I used the white base for the pics here, but I only wore it on the eyes with the base once. In my opinion it worked well enough without and that saved me a step. Also, blending out is much easier without white base underneath.

I’d also like to add, temptalia lists the purple of this duo as a dupe for Urban Decay’s Bittersweet blush. I almost bought the blush, then I figured I might as well use this one here. The eyeshadow blends out well enough. I put the plastic (top picture) over the yellow and use a normal size blush brush to pick up the purple. Without the guard I’d need a smaller blush brush.

So this duo paid off well, because I got two eyeshadows and one blush out of it.

This year Urban Decay has released a new lipstick line, the Vice lipsticks. They launched a 100 lipsticks at once. In fact, there are some exclusive colors at Sephora I think, so it’s actually more like 120. I tried two matte ones, 1993 and Blackmail. Both colors were available before in the old lipstick line. There are two matte finishes, comfort matte and mega matte. Both of mine here are comfort matte. I also wish to point out the lipstick bullets, here photographed standing upside down. The top is flat so you can place them upside down without troubles (important for me as I always store my lipsticks like this, so I can read the labels)! And the labels also match the lipstick color, making it even easier to find the color you want. Yes!

Unlike the previous lipstick line, the Vice are more traditionally lipstick shaped. I prefer this shape, this is part of the reason that I haven’t tried them before (the other is that over here they used to be more expensive than MAC, so I stuck with MAC. Except now MAC lippies cost 2 € more than these!)

Swatch time! On top Blackmail, then 1993. Pic taken in the shade.

Swatch time #2! This time taken in direct sunlight and with additional lip liners. Urban Decay offers their own matching lip liners for some lippies (not sure if for all of them) but when I ordered the lipsticks, the liners were sold out! So instead I used my MAC lip liners and I think they match very well: On top, to go with 1993, is MAClip liner Whirl, and on bottom, to go with Blackmail, is lip liner Nightmoth. I don’t own the matching Whirl lipstick, but I guess Whirl and 1993 are pretty much dupes and you can use them and their lip liners interchangably.

1993 looks pretty harsh on my very pale wrist, but on my lips it works out. I mean, it is brown not nude, but it’s supposed to be, hence the nineties name. It’s a very trendy color at the moment. It wears well with or without lip liner, I use it either way depending on the look I want to achieve. The pretty much best thing about this lipstick is that it wears off so evenly! I can go out for dinner and not have to worry about looking weird. The color wears off when eating, and I’ll end up with more of a nude color, but it looks good, too.

The comfort matte formula glides on effortlessly and does not feel drying at all. I’m not 100% convinced on the lasting power, though. Both lipsticks only manage about three to four hours max on me. I think I’ll have to try out the mega matte next. In comparison to other brands, these are less matte and dry than MAC mattes. The formula is most similar to the satiny matte lipsticks by YSL and L’Oreal. The matte by Estee Lauder feel similar, but last longer.

I didn’t manage a lip swatch with 1993 (I mostly wear it to work and have to leave in a hurry), but here’s one of Blackmail:

I think it’s a really pretty color. Sadly, it wears off visibly on the inside when eating and also sort of… rubs off a little. So this is not for dinner outings, more for when you don’t eat or only put it on for pictures and such.

So overall I think the colors are very pretty and I wear 1993 a lot, the dark one not so much. XD I want to try out the other finishes also, especially cream and mega matte. I actually didn’t want to buy Blackmail, I wanted Perversion, but that one is constantly sold out! I don’t get why not more brands release exciting colors, obviously there is a market here. Recently the new Maybelline ‘loaded bolds’ were released in Austria, but they left out the more outlandish colors like black, blue and grey! UNGH WHY! So I’ll just wait patiently until Perversion is in stock.

Finally I decided to try the hyped Urban Decay Primers. Well, I guess they are hyped for a reason.

I went with Original first. Please ignore the other products here, pics are originally from a haul post. XD

Original is a silicony primer. It comes out a little peachy, but applies invisible. So there’s no swatch; you wouldn’t see much.

I have found that the secret to applying Original is to not get out too much. A little dab all over the lid is enough, else it gets crumbly.

And then the promised magic happened. Eyeshadows that worked well already stayed on until evening; eyeshadows that were troublesome at least managed five hours now! Praise the Makeup Gods!

The downside of Original is that it works very well with matte shadows, but shimmers get dulled. Some still work, others are a mere shadow of their usual self (Woodwinked for example). So I guess the brand knows what they are doing, as they also offer a shimmery base for all your shimmery needs. Why sell one primer to the masses when you can sell two (or more)?

Enter Sin. The tube is already so golden and shimmery!

I like the little apple on the back of the tube. 🙂

Since Sin isn’t invisible you get swatches! Here is a little dab of product. It looks small, but this would be too much for two eye lids.

Same dab blended out. It looks so good! Ungh. Best champagne shimmer right there!

Sin can be worn on its own and I did because sometimes its hard to cover the pretty. But alone it does not hold all day. Like my cream-powder layering method, two products generally hold better than one.

Now while Original killed the shimmer in my beloved Woodwinked, Sin amplified it. The combination also holds all day long. Another favorite combination is Sin and the Chanel eyeshadow sticks.

Overall, I think Original might stick a little better, but we’re talking nuances here. Both primers have ascended into my ‘daily items’ box. So for me, these were absolutely worth the hype. I’m so glad to finally know how to get my eyeshadow to stay! However, I cannot promise it’ll work the same way for everybody. I have read many ‘foolproof method’ posts on blogs and they didn’t work for me. Also, the very best primer might not help on a very hot and humid day.

By the way, the package is being revamped. New tubes should come with applicator.

Which primers do you use? Or do you have other tricks to get shadow to stay?

Woman Day happens twice a year in Austria and it means 20% off everything, so now there’s a haul to show.

First, the freebies. Who doesn’t love freebies. I got samples of LacostePur Femme EdP and the brand new GuerlainL’Homme Ideal Cologne (which comes in the concentration of EdT, this is not confusing at all!). The first luxury sample is LancasterTotal Age Correction Mask Cream. I guess this is the sort of thick cream you slather on at night and don’t have to take of anymore? Looking at the very long ingredients list I spot a few things that are probably antioxidants, so it’s gonna be a nourishing repair mask. Although Alcohol is very far up in the list, which is not so good.

The items: Two Zoeva brushes, because I wanted more face brushes and didn’t feel like spending a ton of money. The brushes are 102 Silk Finish (the duo fibre one on top) and 126 Luxe Cheek Finish (the white one).

I also ordered another Urban Decay eye primer, Sin. I love the Original so much and I like the current packaging so I ordered Sin before they replace the packaging.

Tube packaging with nozzle and no applicator. The new packaging will come with doe foot applicator again.

And this is it, the great and slightly confused MAC haul. Confused because I had a mental list of things I wanted, but lots of things were sold out and I thought I wouldn’t get the limited edition Silly lipstick so I got Candy Yum Yum and now I have both. XD

So I got the Chromagraphic Pencil in NC15/NW20, the lip pencils Heroine and Candy Yum Yum and the lipsticks Silly and Candy Yum Yum. Product pics and swatches will be up with the reviews, hopefully tomorrow or the day after. 🙂

Looking at the packagings right now I see that the lipsticks are made in Canada, the Chromagraphic Pencil in Italy, but the liners are produced in Germany. A truly international haul.

If you made it here you deserve a cookie. Is there anything you want reviewed ASAP?